In John chapter 2 we see the first of the 7 miracles of Jesus that John records, starting with turning the water into wine at Cana in Galilee. Why did Jesus say His time had not yet come?

May you be blessed by this study.

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The post John Chapter 2 first appeared on Calvary Chapel Portsmouth.

“This is a provocative chapter – one of the worst in the Old Testament” “Difficult and uncomfortable”. It was introduced as “The Tale of Two Sisters”. It deals with Ohola and Oholibah (analogues of Samaria and Jerusalem).

There were also parallels drawn with the behaviour of modern-day politicians in international relationships and policies in the major denominations of churches. There was mention of the correlation between the 7 ages of Israel and the Ages of the Christian Church. It has been said by some that God is cruel, but it was pointed out that sometimes the appalling behaviour of people warrants severe retribution!

A section deals with the goings-on between Zedekiah and Babylon.

A timeline showing the precision of prophecy was examined. In 573BC Cyrus issued his decree, and the idea that Persia is being liberated this year (2026) was put forward. The similarity of time-gaps between events was highlighted. This was another instance showing the extent of God’s control over history.

Ezekiel’s obedience is evident in the description.

To conclude, a passage is highlighted which is “the death-knell of replacement theology”

(and the transcript will follow in due course )

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PS0: ::: The latest development on the “Transcript” section is that the text-file will be subject to far less preparation than before – less editing and correction. It will still be converted to sentence-column form as before, but any trimming and polishing will be left to the user. Any shortcomings in the transcription software should be pretty obvious and so not a problem in getting the meaning (and the audio file will provide the necessary clarification if required )

PS1: ::: {not-so-}NEW FORMAT of the transcript.
To ease the processing and preparation of the transcript, and we hope improve the readability of the text, a new format was been adopted in mid October. This breaks the text into sentences instead of arbitrarily-sized “paragraphs”. When the reader opens the file in a program such as Notepad (in MS Windows), then the appearance can be just like a newspaper column. The format is such that the user has many options available, depending on preferences and what software they like to use.
Any feedback on usefulness, improvement suggestions, or whatever, would be most welcome.

PS2 ::::: TRANSCRIPT OF THE SERMON
There is a “button” labelled “Save Video” (or “Download Video” sometimes). This actually links to a text-file to download. It is a transcript of the sermon. At present it is at an experimental stage: it is an aid to getting the most out of the sermon audio. There is no substitute for listening to the verbal delivery of a sermon. However, searching through an audio file lasting the best part of an hour can be somewhat difficult. When you approach the search knowing that you’re sure there is something about “redemption”, for example, then a transcript text-search can take you right there and show you the time in the recording where you will find it! The file is simple “text” rather than a more sophisticated form so that you can edit or reformat as you prefer. This transcript is in 2 forms (in the one file). One half consists of normal text arrangement. These ‘blocks’ were at purely arbitrary boundaries (boundaries were inserted at about 800 character intervals, purely to avoid having one huge unbroken deluge of text, i.e. no attempt at grammatical accuracy). The format has now been changed as described above in PS1. The other section is short bunches of words (8 to 12 nomally) beneath the TIMES at which they occur (for the whole sermon).
This facility is in development (“experimental” as mentioned above) so any feedback on usefulness, improvement suggestions, or whatever, would be most welcome.

The post Ezekiel Chapters 23 & 24 first appeared on Calvary Chapel Portsmouth.

The book of Job is possibly one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible, yet it is profoundly important to God’s plan of redemption!

Satan presents a challenge to God, that mankind only loves Him because of the blessings He gives, and that if those blessings were to be taken away, man would care nothing for God. The question is, could a man love God simply for who He is?

As we explore in this study, this is no trivial issue, but was a challenge by Satan on God’s plan of redemption – and it had to be settled for all time, and Job’s life becomes the battleground; he is the man God chooses to prove the point and decisively defeat Satan’s argument.

May this overview prompt you to undertake your own study of this divinely inspired book.

The PDF slides are from the PowerPoint presentation used during the teaching session.
You can listen to the audio on this web page, or save it for later listening.

The post Session 20 – Job first appeared on Calvary Chapel Portsmouth.